Re: [RFC PATCH] afs: Create a mountpoint through symlink() and remove through rmdir()

[Linus Torvalds]

On Wed, Feb 19, 2020 at 4:11 PM David Howells <dhowells@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> If symlink() is given a magic prefix in the target string, turn it into a
> mountpoint instead.
>
> The prefix is "//_afs3_mount:".

That sounds sane.

Your argument that if the prefix is made really long it couldn't be a
valid symlink at all on AFS is fair, but seems somewhat excessive.

The only issue I see with this interface is that you can now create
these kinds of things by untarring a tar-ball etc.

I can see that being both very convenient and a possible security
pain. But I'm assuming that the real security is on the server side
anyway and not just anybody can create arbitrary things like these?

         Linus